Entries tagged with: Wilco

Wilco will play a run of 16 concerts in Eastern U.S. cities beginning in Miami, FL on March 22 and culminating in Pittsburgh, PA on April 11. The concerts are presented as "An Evening with Wilco" and will feature extended, varied sets exploring material from each of the accomplished Chicago sextet's seven studio albums. The tour includes concerts in Clearwater, Savannah, Atlanta, Durham, Richmond, Bethesda, Montclair, Providence, Boston, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, and features Wilco's first concert appearances in the cities of Scranton, PA, Concord, NH and Hartford, CT. Ticket presales for these new dates are set for Wednesday, January 6 at 10 am EST via the band's official website, Wilcoworld.net.

The new set of dates are in addition to many more than 16 that were already announced, and they include two nights in a row (April 2-3) at the Wellmont Theatre in Montclair, NJ. $38.00 tickets for those shows go on general sale Friday, January 8th at 12PM via tickets.com.

All dates, and some videos that Beck posted (as part of his ongoing "Record Club") of Wilco covering Skip Spence songs with Jamie Lidell, Jeff Tweedy's son, Feist and friends, below...

Lady Gaga was nominated five times. Considering her rocket to fame over the last year, many were expecting more for her. But at least the contests are going to be really interesting: Beyoncé, [Taylor] Swift and Lady Gaga are going head to head in three of the most important categories: album, record and song of the year. Will one of them sweep, or will the lady vote be split?

One of the usual complaints about the Grammys is that it over-rewards older, established, familiar acts at the expense of newer, fresher ones. MGMT, the Brooklyn synth-rock duo, was nominated for best new artist, a big coup although not unexpected. But some of the shoulda-been names that have been circulated and Tweeted: Grizzly Bear, another acclaimed Brooklyn group; Regina Spektor, a young New York songwriter who started in the underground and has found some mainstream popularity; Diane Birch, a young soul-style singer, just the revivalist type the Grammys usually adore; and the Decemberists, an alt-folk-rock band from Portland, Ore., that released an ambitious concept album this year. [NY Times]

Neko Case, Imogen Heap, Phoenix, Silversun Pickups, David Byrne, Wilco, Death Cab for Cutie, and Yeah Yeah Yeahs are some of the other familiar names in the list of Grammy nominees this year. As Ben Sisario in the NY Times alludes, the nominations are a complete joke and predictable... but fun to look at anyway. Nobody expects Animal Collective to get picked, despite their soon-to-be status of being one of the highly rated artists of the year (and decade maybe).

One surprise (for me anyway) came this year in the video category. Montreal's Beast were nominated for "Mr. Hurricane". That video with a list of some of the other nominees, below...

The December issue of Q Magazine is an 'Artists Of The Century' special edition, covering all of the acts that the fine staff of the good ship Q feel are the most important of the century so far. As befitting a special edition of the UK best selling music monthly requires a special cover was commissioned world renowned photographer John Wright has spent over a year shooting 34 artists to fit on triple fold out cover.

The issue is packed to the gills with pieces written by Russell Brand on Noel Gallagher, Glastonbury founder Michael Eavis on Coldplay and Queens Of The Stone Age frontman Josh Homme on The Arctic Monkeys. In addition it also includes exclusive interviews and photos from the likes of Amy Winehouse, Dizzee Rascal, U2, Dave Grohl, Lily Allen, Rihanna, Sir Paul McCartney, Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day, Brandon Flowers from The Killers, Elbow's Guy Garvey, Pink, Muse's Matt Bellamy, Murdoc from Gorillaz, The Kings Of Leon, Mark Ronson, Mika, Nick Cave, Robert Plant, Florence Welch, Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol and Tom Chaplin of Keane.

What do you get when you throw Pitchfork's favorite albums in a blender with NME's? Q's favorite albums of 2009 are (questionable & very UK-centric and) listed below..

"Driving overnight after the show in Munich Thursday night, the bus and trailer were hit and rendered immovable. The trailer was wrecked and the bus engine split. Everyone involved is fine and spent a day in Austria pulling things together. However, a replacement bus and trailer was supposed to arrive earlier today to pick everyone up in time to make the show in Milan tonight as special guests to Wilco, but it did not show up for hours and thusly we will miss tonight's performance. Rest of tour continues as scheduled. Italy, we will make it up to you." [Grizzly Bear]

The Wilco show in Italy was a one-off show on Grizzly Bear's current tour with St. Vincent (Annie is the opener. She plays solo.). Last week GB released a cool new claymation video for the song "Ready, Able". That video and all dates below...

Farm Aid finally planted its deep seeds in St. Louis for the first time Sunday, with the big benefit event unfolding all day at a sold-out Verizon Wireless Amphitheater.

It was a long day of messages -- just say "no" to factory farming and "yes" to family farming. The point couldn't be stressed enough, it seemed, whether via the interactive Homegrown Village area, the concessions, the PA system on the concourse and the performers from the stage.

"We want our farms back," said rock icon Neil Young at the top of his set. Later, he said: "I hope you're enjoying Farm Aid. We'd enjoy it more if you'd give us some money."

But it was the music, not the messages necessarily, that packed the joint, the wall-to-wall rock and country music. And Farm Aid overflowed with it, culminating in headliners Willie Nelson, Young, Dave Matthews and John Mellencamp, all Farm Aid board members. [St Louis Dispatch]

Daft Punk's first album had helped refresh house music in the mid 1990s; the second went further, rewriting electronic pop's pleasure principles to such a degree that when it came out a lot of people thought Discovery must be a put-on. They took the joy in the record for irony. Rather, the band had simply plunged into the raw popstuff of their 70s childhoods, from AOR to disco, Buggles to Manilow, rock to robotics. They wanted their listeners to get the rush of context-free delight they had hearing music as kids, and on "Aerodynamic" and "Digital Love" they succeeded wildly, dissolving a decade-plus of dance music good taste. And not all of Discovery looked back. The middle of the album is house music as string theory, with the duo finding dimensions of pleasure coiled within the tiniest loops: "Crescendolls" releases an awesome, gleeful energy by repeatedly triggering one five-second sample.

Discovery was simply the decade's best good-times record, with Daft Punk as pyramid-toting party wizards and the chipmunk Kraftwerk of "Harder Better Faster Stronger" their anthem. But this most celebratory of records has a bittersweet streak, too: Daft Punk know that a rush always carries the risk of exhaustion. Perhaps the album's most underappreciated track is the sad but gorgeous "Short Circuit", a three-minute robot graveyard of crumbled transistors and dying LEDs. But from Romanthony's first blissful, vocoded shout of "one more time!" the dominant emotion on Discovery is joy. A joy that wasn't afraid to be sentimental and funny as well as hard and futuristic, and is all the better for that. When a generation looks back and tries to catch a fuzzy hold of the music that made them happy this decade, Daft Punk's will be top of the list. --Tom Ewing [Pitchfork]

Daft Punk grabbed the #3 spot on Pitchfork's list of the Top 200 albums of the 2000s (now fully announced) (yesterday they were only up to #21). The top 20 are also listed below...

"Let's see how long it takes BV to mention that Phil Collins will never drum again." - Anonymous

In the UK press today, there appeared some articles about Phil's physical state, with some slightly misleading headlines. Here, in Phil's own words, are how he describes his situation:

"There isn't any drama regarding my 'disability' and playing drums.
Somehow during the last Genesis tour I dislocated some vertebrae in my upper neck and that affected my hands. After a successful operation on my neck, my hands still can't function normally.

"Maybe in a year or so it will change, but for now it is impossible for me to play drums or piano. I am not in any 'distressed' state, stuff happens in life."

In other drummers named Phil news, NME reports that "Radiohead drummer Phil Selway has announced that he is set to release a solo album."

Selway, who sings on the album, is currently in the process of recording the as-yet untitled record in his band's Oxfordshire studio.

He enlisted the services of Wilco members Glenn Kotche and Pat Sansone to play on the project, and multi-instrumentalist solo artist Lisa Germano and bass player Sebastian Steinberg have also contributed.

No release date or any more details yet. A video of Phil McKenna playing drums, below...

After that, Phosphorescent has two weeks of tour dates in October that include a stop at Farm Aid in St. Louis, Mo on October 4th which is kind of awesome, but not surprising since Matthew Houck (Mr. Phos) has become friendly with Farm Aid president Willie Nelson ever since Willie became a fan of Matthew's tribute album. Also on the bill of Farm Aid this year: John Mellencamp, Neil Young, Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds with Jamey Johnson, Jason Mraz, and Wilco. Rumor is that (very prolific) Willie and Phos may even have something else in the works.

Coming up, Wilco has mostly European dates, with a short set of US shows in October. Those dates are below. Guitarist Nels Cline will also be making a series of non-Wilco appearances, mostly in NYC, starting with a July 30th show at the Stone.

There was a screening of "Funny People" in NYC yesterday. "Funny People is the new Judd Apatow movie that stars Seth Rogan, Adam Sandler, Leslie Mann, and Raaaaaaaandy. As you can see in the track listing above, the soundtrack features a live Wilco song that was recorded when they were playing shows last year with Andrew Bird who joined them on stage. Some video examples of that below.

Wilco came to NYC this week to play a big show at Keyspan Park in Coney Island (7/13). That show also featured many special guests including Leslie Feist who most likely flew in mainly to join Wilco for their appearance on the David Letterman show which aired last night (7/14), but was recorded yesterday afternoon which gave Jeff Tweedy plenty of time to make it over to the movie screening (which he was spotted at). Letterman video below...

Bastille Day is the French national holiday, celebrated on 14 July each year. In France, it is called Fête Nationale ("National Celebration") in official parlance, or more commonly le quatorze juillet ("14 July"). It commemorates the 1790 Fête de la Fédération, held on the first anniversary of the storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789; the anniversary of the storming of the Bastille fortress-prison was seen as a symbol of the uprising of the modern nation, and of the reconciliation of all the French inside the constitutional monarchy which preceded the First Republic, during the French Revolution. [Wikipedia]

"A 20-foot-long basking shark washed ashore at Gilgo State Park Tuesday morning, according to a park official. The shark was dead by the time the state parks department was notified, said parks spokesman George Gorman." [Newsday]

"Some of us got to see Wilco play at Coney Island last night. I'm happy to report that they remain one of the best live acts out there, deftly combining jaw-dropping virtuosity, inventive heart-on-your-sleeve songwriting and, yes, genuine showmanship. They connect! The new material came off well, and they kept the noodle-ing to a minimum (Impossible Germany = bad, Spiders = good). Jeff Tweedy seemed to be in particularly good spirits, cracking some great jokes and reminding me of the recent NY Times interview with him" [the mockingbird blog]

So, just to recap, Feist, formerly and recently of BSS, was already BFF with Grizzly Bear, and is now BFF with Wilco. This = a good thing. Feist will appear on Letterman with Wilco tonight (7/14). Last night, in Coney Island, Feist and Ed from Grizzly Bear and Yo La Tengo (who opened the show) appeared on stage with Wilco at Keyspan Park (home of the Brooklyn Cyclones which is the minor league baseball team named after the roller coaster, which is located in the same section of Brooklyn (Coney Island), and which Ed and Feist also rode while they were there).

Full setlist from the show and much more about it, HERE. The rest of the pictures and some videos, below...

Like she will Tuesday on Letterman (tonight, 7/14), Leslie Feist joined Wilco on stage at Keyspan Park in Coney Island on Monday night (7/13) for a few songs. Edward Droste of Grizzly Bear played with them too. Collectively they performed Woody Guthrie's "California Stars". Yo La Tengo opened the show, and then also joined Wilco on stage during the encore. Pictures and more from the show coming soonHERE. Full setlist below.

Earlier in the evening Feist and Ed rode The Cyclone, the famous Coney Island roller coaster (as you can see in the picture above). If you've never been on it, this Saturday during the Siren Festival might be a good time to change that.

For Grizzly Bear and Feist, it was just another example of a growing history of collaborations that includes multiple TV appearances, touring, recorded stuff, and on stage appearances. It's not clear if Ed will be on Letterman tonight too, but we do know that Feist and Wilco will perform the new Wilco song "You and I" on the show. They performed the same song together in Coney Island, and for the first time, in LA on June 25th. Video from that earlier one below.

Two nights before playing in Brooklyn, Feist reunited again with Broken Social Scene on stage at the Harbourfront Centre show in Toronto. For Feist it was at least the second time recently she played with her old band. To make this one even more special though, Emily Haines and Amy Millan were also all up there on stage at the same time - it was a proper BSS reunion. Videos below.

Wilcowill play Brooklyn's Keyspan Park tonight (June 13th) with Yo La Tengo. Tickets are sold out (no tickets at the door even), but there are still tickets available to Wilco's July 18th show at Dutchess Stadium in Wappingers Falls, NY (about an hour and a half north of NYC). That show pairs the band with opener Conor Oberst & the Magic Family Band (who played NYC on July 4th with Jenny Lewis). Oberst recently opened other shows for Wilco, including Friday, July 10th in Wilmington, Delaware.

In Friday's opener, "Wilco (the song)," a generous-spirited rocker, the raspy-voiced Tweedy volunteered his accomplished band as "a sonic shoulder to cry on," and promised the intergenerational crowd, "Wilco will love ya, baby."

That affection was expressed in a career-spanning set that reached back as far as 1994's underrated A.M. for the bittersweet "Box Full of Letters." But rather than a shoulder to cry on, Wilco's songs typically offered a chance to bond over shared anxieties.

Tweedy is not always the most articulate lyricist; I'm not quite sure what it means to be "cold as gasoline," as he sings on the new disc's "Solitaire." But his band, whose standout star is avant guitarist Nels Cline, is expert at expressing its leader's discomfort in songs such as "Muzzle of Bees."

Even a song that declares "I'm Always in Love" finds reason to worry. The only carefree tune after the opener was the closer, the deliriously happy "Hoodoo Voodoo," whose lyrics were not written by Tweedy but by Woody Guthrie... [Philadelphia Inquirer]

Videos from that July 10th show and their July 11th show in Lowell, MA, are below.

All those Ballpark gigs are part of Wilco's summer tour in support of the now-out Wilco (The Album). In August, they'll be touring behind the record in Europe.

Zs celebrated the release of their Music Of The Modern White 12" (on Social Registry) at a Secret Project Robot show on June 24th. A video of "MMWI (Part II)" from that record is below. The band, currently on a short tour, returns to play a show at Brooklyn's Death By Audio on July 3rd.

Aquarium Drunkard: The new record seems like it's a combination of everything within Son Volt, all the way back to Trace [the band's 1995 debut] - it seems like something that spans the 13 or 14 years of the band.

Jay Farrar (of Son Volt): That's interesting. Perhaps that's true. I'm not sure. [laughs] All I do know is that I follow wherever inspiration takes the writing and you have to get away from certain kinds of instrumentation, like violin, in order to really feel like starting to use it again.

AD: The new album has this prevalent dark feel to it - in a certain sense - even though there are songs that escape that. There's this sense of, as one of the songs says, that there's "no turning back." You talked about this being a more focused record, but can you explain how the album title ties in with that?

JF: Basically they are three words that were pulled from three different songs - "American," "central" and "dust." I've done that before, but it seems like that's the best way to come up with a representative title for all of the songs.

Son Volt's new album, American Central Dust, its sixth, comes out July 7th on Rounder Records. That's a week after Farrar's ex-Uncle Tupelo bandmate Jeff Tweedy & Wilco put out their seventh LP, Wilco (The Album).

Tweedy & Co. are on tour this summer. So are Son Volt. They'll play a co-headlining tour with the Cowboy Junkies in July. Then, Son Volt picks up for a second leg in September. Those dates include a show at NYC's Irving Plaza on September 17th. Tickets are on sale now.

American Central Dust's twelve songs include "Down to the Wire," which is posted above, and "Cocaine and Ashes," a song allegedly about Keith Richards and that incident that happened a few years ago. Album art and tracklist are below with all tour dates...

"Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy gave fans a scare Saturday night at the recently refurbished Fox Theater in Pomona when he declared, 12 songs into the band's set, that the Chicago-based act was "approaching the end of an era," and promised more details later.

Those aren't words to be taken lightly for Wilco followers. Depending on who's doing the counting, the group has had as many as six different eras since releasing its country-obsessed 1995 debut, "A.M." Yet its audience has remained loyal through a host of lineup changes, Tweedy and bassist John Stirratt being the only constants in Wilco's career.

While the comment raised concerns about a future without, say, the participation of local guitar slinger Nels Cline or rhythmic contortionist Glenn Kotche, the truth turned out to be nothing so worrisome. After 45 minutes, Tweedy revealed only that multi-instrumentalist Pat Sansone was turning 40." [LA Times]

The 25-song setlist from Saturday night's show is below.

"Due to production changes, field tickets have just been released" for Wilco's upcoming show at Keyspan Park in Brooklyn. Yo La Tengois opening.

Nels Cline has three non-Wilco NYC shows coming up. One of those shows is the previously-mentioned M. Ward Central Park Summerstage gig where Nels will play in a band with Mike Watt, Yuka Honda, Dougie Bowne. That foursome is called Floored by Four, and according to Mr Watt, they "plan to record a album the two days before the gig." Add it to the list. All Nels dates below...

In the late '80s, Bennett founded the rock band Titanic Love Affair in Urbana, Ill., which lasted into the mid-'90s. He was best known for his seven years in adventurous rock act Wilco. Bennett split from the Chicago-based group in 2001, and since his departure had been pursuing a solo career, as well as operating Pieholden Suite Sound - named after a song on Wilco's 1999 album "Summerteeth" -- in Champaign , Ill.

Bennett released the solo effort "Whatever Happened I Apologize" via the Web late last year, and reported at that time that he was pursuing "another" master's degree at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Yet it was Bennett's time in Wilco that won him the most acclaim.

He had a not-so-amicable split from the band in 2001, which was documented in the 2002 film "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart" and Greg Kot's book "Wilco: Learning How to Die." He did, however, play a major role in the band as a writer, producer and musician. The orchestrated pop of "Summerteeth" further stripped Wilco of its country-rock roots, and 2002's "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" saw the band move into more atmospheric territory.

"From the moment you set foot inside the main gate at the Fair Grounds Race Course, the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival is like a music and food lover's "Choose Your Own Adventure" novel, with nearly every option inciting pure sonic and culinary bliss. A morning beignet in the Gospel Tent with Arthur Clayton & Purposely Anointed? A lazy afternoon perked up by some Crawfish Monica and the Drive-By Truckers joined by Booker T? How about a stroll to the Gentilly Stage for the sounds of Spoon and the Dirty Dozen horns, stopping for a quick bowl of gumbo along the way? Etta James and a Soft Shell Crab Po-Boy, anyone? All signs point to yes...

...Now in its 40th year, the 2009 edition of Jazz Fest continues to ramp up post-Hurricane Katrina, expanding to its full complement of 12 stages, up from nine last year, and seven days, up from six in recent years. The event's first of two weekends boasted music from nearly 200 acts, including the likes of Dave Matthews Band, Crescent City native Wynton Marsalis and his Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, Joe Cocker, Erykah Badu, James Taylor, Earth Wind and Fire, Pete Seeger, Hugh Masekela, Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, Etta James and many more." [All About Jazz]

Jazz Fest ran from April 24-26 & April 30-May 3 at the Fair Grounds Race Course in New Orleans, LA. More pictures from the first weekend of the festival below...

"Hudson River Sloop Clearwater's sold out "Spring Splash" benefit concert on Saturday night [March 28] at Beacon High School, Beacon, NY, was a big success, raising tens of thousands of dollars for the organization's education and environmental action programs. The concert, which featured Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy in a rare solo acoustic setting, also included a special encore with Clearwater founder Pete Seeger and his grandson Tao Rodriguez-Seeger.

Pete Seeger opened the show with Dan Einbender, Clearwater's Tideline Discovery Program Director, and together they led a chorus of fourth graders from Beacon's J. V. Forrestal Elementary School known as "The Kids From Room 12" in a rousing set of songs about protecting the Hudson River and other cause-related issues.

Tweedy performed for more than an hour and a half, delighting the capacity crowd of a thousand people, many of them ardent fans, with his music and storytelling. Several of Tweedy's songs led to impromptu sing-a-longs, and he finished his show by singing two songs at the lip of the stage without any amplification, a salute to another environmental cause, Earth Hour, which was taking place nationally on Saturday night.

"This great night for Clearwater exemplifies what we do best: raise awareness and inspire people to take action," said Jeff Rumpf, executive director of Clearwater. "We're presently working on our 'Next Generation Legacy Project' to create new green leaders and achieve the sustainable future we need, and the proceeds from this concert will go toward this effort."

"You have to give it up for Wilco for making things so simple. The group's seventh album -- due out in late June -- will be titled Wilco (The Album). Even cooler: there's a cut on the disc titled "Wilco The Song," which Glenn Kotche describes to Rock Daily as "a great, upbeat song professing our love for our fans."

There's a little something for everyone on the group's new disc, which they recorded in their loft space in Chicago. "One Wing" and "Sunny Feeling" are breezy, pop-friendly tunes; "Deeper Down" is a mellow ballad spiked with atmospherics and chamber strings; the nearly-six-minute jam "Bull Black Nova" starts with rollicking drums, stacatto keys and guitars before exploding into a killer solo from guitarist Nels Cline. Think of the it as a sonic follow-up to the kraut-rockin' "Spiders (Kidsmoke)." "That one's a really intense, powerful song," says Kotche of "Nova." "It's got a static groove that's really insistent. There's a lot of great guitar moments on that song."

This June, Wilco will hit the road for a summer tour of festivals (Bonnaroo, 10,000 Lakes), minor league ball parks (Keyspan Park in Brooklyn, NY) and intimate theaters and the crew will be unleashing most of the 11 tracks from the new record..."
[Rolling Stone]